Followers

Sunday, January 1, 2006

One by one, their heads nod, then drop into a chorus of muffled snores. Only I remain awake, holding the wheel. I pilot these tons of steel at lethal speed, twisting past drop-offs, abutments, massive trucks. Husband, child, baby, how thoughtlessly each of you drops your life into these tired and slightly achy hands. It would only take a flick of the wrist, a moment's inattention. And yet you sleep. And still I drive. The thought of your fragile, precious bodies fills every mile, a surfeit of joy and terror.

She wouldn’t suck. She wouldn’t cuddle.Her eyes rolled toward me, then away again.I hugged her to my chest and ranfrom the doctor’s office to the X-ray lab.There they jammed her into a plastic tube with her arms above her head,still in her white T-shirt, crying.“That’s good,” the technician said.“It expands the lungs.”When they handed her back,I wouldn’t lay her down again.I slept that night in a chair, holding her up so the mucus would drain.In sudden, sharp focus, I cherished it all:the sweaty spikes of her damp hair,the rattling vibrations of every breath.I hold no moments more precious than these,the nearly unbearable,a pain so pure, it was almost like happiness.

It was church rule. All women and girlsmust wear a dress that covered their knees.In the hidey-hole under the hedge behind my houseI hiked my skirt, and hugged my knees.Each bony knob fit in the cup of one palm,and my chin fit between them. Wind playedwith the baby-fine hairs. Pine needles tickled.How funny the skin sliding over the kneecaps.How soft the damp hollows behind,where my fingers felt my heart beating.When Mother called, I crawled out. I stood,and the cotton fell in a ripple down my legs.Now we would go to church and hear about Jesus.He died on the cross, but first they stripped him.He went naked to save us. All Jerusalem,and all heaven saw his knees,saw the boat of his hips, the wings of his shoulders,his ribs, and long bones, and things I dare not name.I wondered, I did not ask,how could shame live in any body part,after God had burned inside it like a sun?